For four generations, his family has run a small clothing manufacturer, A&H Sportswear in Stockertown. Its flagship brand is the Miraclesuit, which promises to make a swimsuit wearer look 10 pounds lighter.

This year, the company got big news: Department store giant J.C. Penney was running a "Made in the USA" promotion and wanted to fill its racks with A&H Sportswear designs.

To fill the order, Waldman needed a specialty fabric from Asia that carried a high import tariff. The purchase would have made the J.C. Penney order unprofitable — and maybe even impossible.

So Waldman turned to U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr. and U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent for help.

The lawmakers were familiar with this type of request, having helped other companies with similar quandaries. For decades, businesses and their lobbyists have come hat in hand to lawmakers asking for a temporary suspension of the tariffs they pay on specific products made overseas. It can save companies up to $500,000 per product.

Proponents say it's a way to bolster American companies and save jobs. Critics say it puts too much power in the hands of individual Congress members. And while it saves businesses money, it costs the government hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

For Waldman, asking Casey and Dent to remove the duty on elastomeric material would mean steady work for his 200 employees in Stockertown and Nazareth, with sewing machines humming to fill the JCPenney order. The request, made in April, is under review in Congress and by several federal agencies.

"Our only purpose is to keep jobs here," Waldman said.

Tariffs on imports exist to help domestic producers compete with foreign companies who sell cheaper goods. But there's agreement that if an American company needs a material that can only be purchased overseas or the American consumer wants a product that is only made abroad, an additional tax is unfair.

Over the past 30 years, some of the Lehigh Valley's biggest employers have won congressional support in the tariff bill — a collection of all lawmakers' requests in one mammoth package. This year, for example, Air Products requested duty suspensions on nine esoteric but essential materials, with names like "triethylenediamine" and "ancamine 2422."

Every few years, Air Products winnows a massive list of imported chemicals to the eight or so that will make it to a lawmaker's desk, company spokesman George Noon said. Its pitch: Reducing prices on imported raw materials keeps Americans working.

"The suspension of the appropriate tariffs means we can reduce the cost of raw materials and be more competitive globally," Noon said. "It's not new for Air Products and it's not new for lots of companies."

In less divisive times, little attention was paid to the hundreds of narrow requests that are rolled into one large measure and passed through Congress. Lawmakers write one-to-two-page legislation for each product and submit it to a congressional committee and the U.S. International Trade Commission for review. By law, the government can't lose more than $500,000 in duty revenue per product. There is also a period for any domestic producer to object. If Dent's requests for 2012 make it into the final package — known on Capitol Hill as the Miscellaneous Tariffs Bill — Hershey won't have to pay taxes on Cadbury Crème Eggs imported from the United Kingdom and bulk chocolate crumb from Ireland. In all, Dent has eight requests pending this year.

"If we're providing relief to American producers, if we're helping them become more competitive, it's going to ultimately benefit the American economy," Dent said.

Casey, a Democrat up for re-election this year, has far and away been the most benevolent of any member of Congress this year, requesting 84 individual products be available tariff-free to companies in Pennsylvania, one of the nation's largest manufacturing states.

"The basic intent is to level the playing field for our manufacturers," Casey said. "Also, it's important to note that if I don't stand up to help these companies, what do people say to me at the end of the road if they're not competitive, not able to expand, not able to grow."

"Just maintaining the jobs they have is compelling enough to support this," he added.

The practice has long been bipartisan and most Pennsylvania U.S. House Republicans, including local area lawmakers like Dent, 15th District, Jim Gerlach, 6th District, and Mike Fitzpatrick, 8th District, have made a handful of requests this year.